Road Journal

Day 1 – 2017 Andy Mapple Pro-Am

We just finished day 1 of 3 of the Andy Mapple Pro-Am at JB Ski at Thorpe Park in England. This a a great water sports venue just outside of London approximately 20 minutes from the London Heathrow Airport. There are two slalom courses, a jump ramp, cable park, aqua park and large water area where you can tube, knee board, wakeboard and wake surf.
We are skiing where it says “Britannia Arena”.

This is a special event honoring the GOAT and legend in our sport, the late Andy Mapple.

With this event being a Pro-Am, there is a team event where 4 amateur skiers and 1 pro skier complete a team. After the first round of skiing, one amateur from all 18 teams picked a pro’s name out of a hate. I was picked by the Wiremill PPF Team. This team of skiers ski are part of the Wiremill Water Ski Club where we just had the Wiremill Pro Elite Slalom this past Wednesday. Here is the team members:

In round 1 of the skiing today we faced gusting head-tail winds from approximately 10-20mph. We are skiing behind a Nautique 200 6L with an ECI puck and Spain’s Ricardo Botas was behind the wheel. 7th skier in, fellow American, Corey Vaughn set the pace by running 1@10.25m. A few skiers later I took to the water. It was not a pretty set for me but I continued to fight my way through 11.25m and 10.75m. At 10.25m I had a rough start and found myself fast into 2 ball, tail turning, pulling all the way to three trying to release the ski out from under me but ran right over the top of 3 ball score 2@10.25m. After the hits I took in Italy I am not wanting to sacrifice the body anymore as I am paying the consequences now. Jon Travers opted somewhere in his set running a tailwind 10.75m and scoring 2@10.25m to tie me with the lead. Nate Smith took to the water and we thought we saw him take down a tailwind 10.25m pass until the crowd was notified that the rope was not shortened and it was 10.75m again. After bringing him back to the start end and waiting a bit for a goose to get out of the course, he came back at 10.25m sitting back a bit out of 2 ball and standing up to get a full 3@10.25m and taking the lead. 8 guys ran 10.75m in the first round.

Skiers have to ski all 3 rounds (one round Friday, Saturday and Sunday) and the top 8 overall scores advance to the 8 man head to head final on Sunday. Ties to get into the top 8 will go to back up scores, then Elite Ranking, then World Ranking if needed. You can follow the live scoring at https://www.iwwfed-ea.org/competition.php?cc=T-17GBR001&page=allm_d2_slalom_results and the Sunday head to head final will be web casted live on the event website www.andymapplepro-am.com and youtube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhYEfTG3SPA&feature=player_embedded
We are scheduled to ski at 1:30pm here in London where we are 8 hours ahead of PST and 5 hour ahead of EST.